Bringing the Hate

Don't you worry, Bee Pee. I got your back.

Brandon Phillips, the Cincinnati Reds second baseman, was one of my favorite Reds before today.

After today he may be my all time favorite.

You see... Brandon Phillips brought back one of the greatest traditions in all of sports. A tradition that has fizzled and died under the surge of free agency and hyper-rich athletes who all live next door to each other in Orlando and Scottsdale.

Brandon Phillips brought back the hate.

Here's what he said about the St. Louis Cardinals:

"I'd play against these guys with one leg. I hate the Cardinals. All they do is bitch and moan about everything, all of them, they're little bitches, all of 'em. I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear: I hate the Cardinals.”

Thank you, Brandon Phillips. You have made me smile one of the most sincere sports-related smiles I can remember.

I will always remember talking to my dad about baseball as a kid, and hearing about how when he was growing up, he HATED the Los Angeles Dodgers. I re-confirmed this with him today... He said "We all hated them. We hated everything about them. The way the played. The way they acted. Everything."

In the 60s and 70s the Reds and the Dodgers were the two best teams in the National League. They were always fighting and competing and hating each other. And it was great. That's where rivalries come from.

Then, as free agency gained steam and players played for multiple teams over the course of their careers and they got richer and more detached, the rivalries fizzled. Too often you'd see first basemen chatting with runners at first base. You'd see catchers and batters exchanging friendly words between pitches. It makes me fucking sick.

I am sad I never got to see the days when a Juan Marichal would beat Johnny Roseboro with a bat at home plate.

I'm not saying there should be REAL hate. I don't wish bad things for Chris Carpenter in his personal life, but do I want the Reds to shove that baseball up his whiny ass every chance they can get.

It's good for sports to have rivalries. It's good for fans to have teams to root against. They made musicals about how much people hated the Damn Yankees back in the day, for god's sake.

I love what Brandon Phillips said. Even if it's not true (it is true. totally true) it's a throwback to the days when the players didn't all live in the same gated communities in South Beach in the off season. That's only a good thing.

Tonight, in response, the Cardinal's catcher Yadi Molina started proving Bee Pee right by acting like a little bitch and whining that Brandon huwt his feewings. Then they fought. Like enemies should. And it made me laugh and smile, because finally... FINALLY I have MY Dodgers. I have a team that I can unequivocally root against every minute of every game. I did anyway, but this makes it even better.

The Reds are finally good again. They are finally good enough to have a rivalry that means something. It's pretty freaking awesome.

(Except not Shitty)

As you all know, I've been on a bit of a "post-apocalyptic/ zombie" kick of late when it comes to my book reading. This is, in no small part, the influence of the Tofu Muchacha who has possibly the darkest taste in stories of anyone other than my dad. I asked her for a recommendation when I finished Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse. She immediately rattled off about 15 books within the post-apocalypic/zombie genres. One of the books that stood out most to me was The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. I remember her reading it when we were in Michigan, and commenting repeatedly how much she liked it.

The book is considered "Young Adult" fiction, which sort of made me hesitant to read it... I mean, I'm generally at such a sophisticated reading level that I feared "young adult" would be too boring... Kidding.... I really just typically like more detailed descriptions of boobs and drug use. What made me even more hesitant was that the book is about a 17 year old girl. Oh... and there's supernatural elements AND a forbidden romance AND a love triangle. Now... call me crazy, but when I hear "Young Adult fiction about a teen aged girl, where there are both elements of the supernatural and forbidden romance with love triangles".... I think of mother fucking Twilight.

Well... I read Twilight. I read it based on less trustworthy recommendation than that of The Tofu Muchacha. You can read my full thoughts on Twilight HERE. (Interestingly, I think my overall opinion of Twilight has degraded significantly since I wrote that.) So, based on the recommendation alone, I decided to read it The Forest of Hands and Teeth.

I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed it... In fact, I enjoyed it for succeeding in many of the areas where Twilight failed. Allow me to discuss...

The Writing...

Carrie Ryan does an excellent job of writing the whole book from the first person perpective of her heroine, Mary, without making her seem like a completely self-involved idiot. On the other hand, Stephenie Meyer also writes her books from the first person perspective of her heroine, Bella Swan, and utterly fails to make her even remotely likeable. The structure of her prose is graceful... intricately weaving the internal monologue of Mary with the first person observations about the factual events going on. I think my favorite thing about the writing is that while the events in the story are fairly repetitive, the descriptions never get stale. It's really an interesting read. Meyer fails to create any sort of variance in her descriptors. In fact, she does the opposite of Ms. Ryan. She has these incredibly varied scenarios, and yet describes them all using the exact same 20 words. (if I have to read about Edward's diamondy skin again...) . The biggest strength of Carrie Ryan's writing is her understanding of stakes. It's so important, in a good thriller, for the stakes to be high throughout, and in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, the threat of death is literally present from the start. I could read The Forest of Hands and Teeth again... I don't know if I could get through Twilight a second time.

The Main Character...

I sort of alluded to this already, but god......damnit do I hate Bella Swan. She's annoying, self-involved, and perpetually in peril. Stephenie Meyer managed to create a book series that is hugely popular with teen girls, with a teen girl as the main character, while making her the most forgettable and unlikable character in the whole series. I'm not one for causes, really, but when I hear about feminists bemoaning how awful a role model Bella Swan is, I find it 100% impossible to disagree. She's helpess, irritating, irredeemably boy-crazy, and makes one insanely bad choice after another.

Carrie Ryan's Mary isn't all that much different, on the surface, than Bella. She has family problems. She analyzes and analyzes and analyzes literally everything that passes through her head. She has a crush on a dude. She's got a legion of the undead wanting to eat her at all fucking times... Still, despite all of those similarities, she's more interesting in the first 6 pages than Bella is in her entire damned saga. She becomes an athiest. She has to deal with her possible fault in her mother's death. She finds herself torn between her loyalty to her best friend and her love for Travis. She's got complexity. She's not always likable, but she's always relate able. Also, it likely doesn't hurt that when Mary is in trouble that she actually does something about it (like decapitate some effing zombies) as opposed to Bella, who lets Edward and Jacob do all of her fighting for her.

Villains...

I acknowledge that vampires are effing awesome. I further acknowledge that the Volturi are especially effing awesome. Awesome Ancient Vampires notwithstanding, they are no match for The Unconsecrated. The Unconsecrated is what the characters in The Forest of Hands and Teeth have given the zombies. They're not as cool as vampires who drive fast cars and engage in witty repartee, but they will actually kill someone, which Stephenie Meyer seems to avoid a lot for a book about fucking VAMPIRES. That's always been my biggest problem with Twilight... the bad guys never do anything bad. In The Forest of Hands and Teeth, the Unconsecrated kill hundreds of people. They cause the deaths of the main character's mother, father, sister-in-law, and beloved. They're bad. They have no feelings. They only thirst. It's fucking terrifying. They fight and claw and push until they get what they want or literally fall apart and degrade to the point where they physically can't continue. As long as their brain is connected they never stop. That's a scary villain.

The Romances...

I said it during my review of Twilight that I thought the love of Bella and Edward was fucking creepy. They went from meeting to madly "irrevocably" in love in the span of 4 pages. It's not romantic that way. It's weird and obsessive and gross. The love of Mary and Travis in The Forest of Hands and Teeth isn't completely different... Mary is willing to give up everything she knows to be with Travis. Even with that similarity, the realism is much, much greater. I love the complications that Carrie Ryan imposes... There are familial loyalties. There are sacrifices of safety and comfort and the feelings of best friends. Every decision Mary makes is weighted with the knowledge that it effects someone she cares about. There's a lot of uncertainty with their love. It may not be as blazingly, crushingly romantic as Twilight, but it has texture to it. It's compelling because you don't know from the first page how it'll end. (Which I may suggest is what is compelling about love in general.) I also really like that Mary doesn't completely lose herself in her romance with Travis. In the end, she's still acting heroically on her own.

All of this is not to say that the book is perfect. There are places where the meandering mind of Mary gets a little maudlin. The story is unfocused in places. The payoff of reaching The Ocean comes too quickly and couldn't possibly live up to the thousand or so references that serve as build-up. The secondary characters are barely developed and in some ways completely inconsequential. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the Shamalyan movie The Village.

Still... I'd read it again, and I'm excited to read the sequel, which came out last month. The book perfectly segued into the likely sequel, and the scope of the first book was small enough, and the frame of reference of Mary was so limited that there are still many books of discoveries she can make.

Dan Brown is a Hack (and other observations)

Dear Dan Brown-

Please, for the love of all that is holy, hire a writing coach. Hire a ghost writer. Hell... Hire a third grader. Anybody. Please. I just read your newest book The Lost Symbol, and let me tell you... I hate you. You make me sad. You have stolen hours upon hours of my time. You've lured me in with your interesting secret clubs and weirdo religious artifactual do-wah (they may not be words, but they should be), and then you pull the tapestry out from under me. Well fuck you Dan Brown. Take a writing lesson.

Sincerely,
The Beefy Muchacho

So many things to say about The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's most recent addition to the Robert Langdon "Histo-Adventure" lexicon. Let's start with why I read it to begin with...

I readily admit to really enjoying The DaVinci Code. I never exactly thought it was this immense work of genius (I mean... it IS beloved by the American public, afterall... How truly good could it be?), but it was entertaining. Then I read the lesser known Angels and Demons, and actually actively LIKED that one. Again... it's not a candidate for the National Book Award, but it was really enjoyable and I'm a sucker for weird Catholic mythos. So yeah... I was down with The Lost Symbol. And Brown sure as hell had plenty of time to make it good. He'd been working on it since 2004... God damnit did he fuck it up.

Here're the problems:

1) The formula is far too formulaic.

The plot is almost literally identical to the other two books. I understand that he's basically working on a formula, not much different from an episode of CSI (I bet they figure out who the killer is right around minute 48), but jeez man... The writers of CSI need the formula to churn out an hour a week for 10 years. What's your excuse? Langdon gets roped into some piece of intrigue under the premise that he's some genius symbol expert. Langdon ends up alienating the law enforcement, who seem to be working against them, but really are on the same side. Langdon joins forces with an attractive and exceptional woman of some kind, in this case a Doctor of Noetic Science (don't even fucking ask...), who has a personal and emotional connection with a victim of the bad guy. Oh... And the bad guy is some loony religious zealot who has a predilection for self-mutilation in some way.

Too familiar. Too cookie cutter. Even if it IS a cookie cutter to his own work, it's still lazy.

2) The ticks are too ticky.

Dan Brown's writing has more ticks than a fucking field guide to the Insects of Pennsylvania. There's something overly repetitive on every page. It's not like Cormac McCarthy, who cultivates a rhythm that some people would call repetitive. For McCarthy it's a choice. For Dan Brown it's hackery.

The New York Times liked the book a lot more than I did, but they did point to (as one of their lone pieces of criticism) something I'd also noticed... At different points in the book, it seems that nearly every other piece of dialogue starts with a variation on "What in the hell...".

When I was in the 2nd grade, I wrote a story called "Short Duckie Blue". I remember using the phrase "Short Duckie Blue was short" and I remember the teacher (Mrs. Roberts) telling me that I should be more creative. It seems that Mr. Brown missed that lesson from the 2nd grade. It's all kinds of "What in the hell"s and "Who in the hell"s and "Why in the hell"s, and it gets old after about 10 pages... too bad there are 440 more. And you know...that's just one example. How about the number of chapters where something is revealed to a character but not to the readers that CHANGES EVERYTHING? How about a character describing another in the exact same way every time? How about every lecture scene, every phone call, every new clue uncovered fitting into the same exact pattern. How often can Robert Langdon's primary trait be incredulity?

It's not just the tired dialogue. It's the characters too... Brown seems to have this obsession with religious zealotry in his villains, but also he obviously wants to fuck them, and badly. Honestly, if he wasn't such a weird misogynist on top of being clearly a little too in love with the physical traits of his characters, it wouldn't be so bad. He's got these man-crushes on his male characters while at the same time over-sexualizing his female characters in a much grittier, grosser way. Brown spends a good amount of his books talking about how strong these women are, but then being amazingly quick to put them in times of peril that only Robert THE MAN Langdon could get them out of... forgetting, of course, that Langdon is essentially giant pussy most of the time.

Oh, and also I could definitely have done without a dozen long descriptions of how ripped the bad guy is, and how giant his junk is, and how the guy spent all this time quenching his insatiable sexual thirsts. If it were in any way relevant to the plot, that'd be one thing, but it's just superfluous nonsense.

I think my least favorite portions of the book are the flashbacks to Langdon when he's teaching. Maybe the students at Harvard are actually mentally retarded, but I've never heard of students get so intensely interested over whatever random theory or notion their professor discusses. It's all "They leaned foward in their seats. You could hear a pin drop" and "Their eyes went wide. Langdon knew he had them!". It's so unbelievable that it takes me right out of the story. I just keep thinking these Harvard students are far too easily moved to awe.

3) Is this a lecture or an adventure?

I liked the same things about The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons that everyone else did. It is really interesting to read about all of these true historical facts about these familiar landmarks and pieces of art. It's fun to postulate the conspiracies of Bernini or DaVinci. It's interesting to hear about these real organizations and locations and get these inside takes. Dan Brown's strength is his incredibly deep research, and the way he interweaves (however flimsily) the facts of his research into a plot. The Lost Symbol had all kinds of potential too. It'd be really interesting to hear about the secrets behind the architecture and art of Washington D.C.... I suspect Dan Brown agreed, which is why he started writing it. Then something unfortunate happened. He got allllmost done with his book and discovered there wasn't really all that much applicable stuff for him to delve into. There isn't a thousand years of religious art and intrigue. There aren't four-thousand year old buildings to find layered in conspiracy and cover-up. Ultimately the Masons aren't all that interesting. So what does Brown do?

He finishes the plot about a hundred pages before he finishes the book. He runs out of Masonic secrets to divulge. He runs out of Washington DC architecture to break-down. So instead of doing the wise thing and ending the book when the villain is beaten (oh... uh... Spoiler Alert), he has Langdon win the day and then he lectures philosophically about the nature of the human brain and Noetics (that's some effing crazy shit). . And the worst part is that the payoff... the big Mason Secret he's built up to for hundreds of pages. This thing that supposedly will endow the bad dude with incredible power... It's fucking LAME. It's so, so lame. I invested all of this time thinking there'd be some awesome payoff, but there wasn't. It was just a lame, silly thing.

This is the thing that pissed me off the most. I could have handled the bad writing, and the weird sexual obsessiveness, and the strangely mottled dialogue if the payoff had been cool. But it wasn't. And then, instead of sucker-punching us all and running like a decent asshole would do, he rubs salt in the wound by talking on and on and on (much like this review) about shit that I don't care about. If I want to know more about Noetics I would look it up. If I wanted to know what Kryptos says, I'll go to Langley and stare at it. Tell me a story or give me a lecture, but make a choice, and don't trick me into thinking I'm getting a story when the story is fucking over.

You know what makes me saddest? There is potential here. I would love to read an adventure story about the secret holdings of the Smithsonian. That would be awesome.

Instead I was subjected to a dumb story about a dumbass, unlucky, bumbling, indignant douchebag named Robert Langdon, who despite his having saved the world (to some degree or other) 2 times previously, seems to forget everything he's learned about himself the moment he returns to Harvard.

What is the World Coming To? (and other dangling prepositions)

So... I go into the trunk of my car tonight to get out some boxes. Wait... I need to go back further...

Back in July I agreed to to props for The Drama Workshop's Fall show "Lend Me a Tenor". I don't know exactly what prompted me, aside from wanting to be more involved than just showing up to act. Well... I've been collecting these props for about a month now, and keeping them in a box and a bag in the trunk of my car.

Every time I open my trunk I sort of inventory the props that I've already obtained, and I also check to make sure nothing's been damaged by my insane driving.

So... I go into the trunk of my car tonight to get out some boxes. I take the boxes out and, because it's dark, I glance quickly in and start to turn away. Then I realize what I'd just seen...or rather...what I'd just NOT seen. The props are all gone. I ask the Tofu Muchacha if she'd moved them.

"No."

I ask the Tofu Muchacha if she remembered me moving them into the backseat for some reason (already knowing the answer).

"No."

So that pretty much leaves only one actuality here... My fucking car was violated. Sodomized. Raped.

I've been robbed before. I'd actually put 3 separate CD players into my old Dodge (Simon the Silver). For some reason, this one feels worse, because like... those had all been on a street, or in the parking lot of my apartment complex. This one was in a driveway. Meaning that the bastards had to go onto private property to do it.

Oh...and also... stealing a CD Player is logical. They have some (if minor) value on the black market. I can't, however, even see the point in sifting through my trunk (oh yes... there were things left, so they took their time to fucking shop) and stealing, among other things a 1930s era radio that doesn't work at all. An old telephone. Some glasses. Oh..and my Disney Villains bath towel that happened to be in there. The mother fuckers.

I hope they die.

There's just no point to it. I hope they fucking enjoy the 19 dollars worth of shit they stole from me, because let's be honest... if your life is at the place where a broken vintage radio is the last thing between you and blowing old men for crack money...well... I guess you needed it more than Tito Merelli.

At least they didn't steal my Blue Ash Idol trophy. That would have really bummed me out.

Evil is their Middle Name

Hey Folks-

Welcome to another Wednesday with Walt.

What makes a great villain? I'd argue that there are several characteristics that define villainy, and today I'm going to determine in my own pseudo-scientific way the greatest of the Disney Villains...

First, the criteria:

1) Evilness. Clearly the most important characteristic in a villain's repertoire is their level of Evilness. If they aren't evil, it's arguable that they aren't even a villain at all.

2) Motive. Depending on the circumstance, a villain's motive for being the way they are may make them more or less villainous. Still... Motive, either way, is important.

3) Comic Relief. Normally, this isn't an important factor in a villain at all, but we're talking about Disney here, not Saw. These movies are satisfying for everyone, because they are designed for everyone.

4) Ability. A bumbling villain isn't an effective villain. The more capable they are, the more dangerous they are.

5) Evil Acts. A villain is ultimately judged by their most heinous acts. It's up to me to decide if 101 pretty evil acts is more or less heinous than 1 truly terrible act. So... here we go.

Now? The candidates...

Over the past week and a half, I've conducted an informal little Villains tournament. I'll be using the winner of each category (known as Fan's Choice) plus the 2nd place nominees in the 2 closest races.

Here we go...

Syndrome (The Incredibles)
Winner of the Pixar Villain Division.
Short Synopsis: Syndrome was a fan of Mr Incredible as a youngster, and was rebuffed by Mr. Incredible one to many times.
Evilness: Syndrome hated the notion of anyone being "Special" so he worked hard to kill any of the "Supers". Killing humans is a good way to earn points on the Evilness Scale. He also is guilty of kidnapping on several counts. Robbery too. He's pretty evil.
Motive: Syndrome is motivated by a childhood embarassment. He was humiliated by Mr. Incredible and decided that the best way to get even was to prove that his human-made gadgets could replace the powers of the Supers. He even plans to sell his inventions, because "When everyone's super, no one will be."
Comic Relief: Syndrome is funny, mostly in appearance. He's got clever dialogue that will appear to the adults in the audience, and his demise with Jack Jack is definitely hilarious, but for the most part, he's not particularly funny.
Ability: Syndrome has a ton of aptitude for villainy. He's been successful enough to get himself a giant private evil island. He was inventing rocket packs when he was a kid. He invented the Omnidroid, a veritable killing machine.
Evil Act: Syndrome unleashed the Omnidroid on Metroville in order to stop it himself, thus becoming the hero he'd always dreamed of being. Not really that evil. He killed some supers. Very evil. I'd give him a 6.5 out of 10.
Fan Factor:
SKULLS: 3 out of 5. He's all over it in Ability, Motive, and Evil, but he's not funny and his evil act is pretty weak overall.

Hopper (A Bug's Life)
Runner Up Pixar Villain Division
Short Synopsis: Hopper, the grasshopper, is the leader of a grasshopper hive... er...clan...or whatever. He's basically made the ant colony into his indentured servants. He requires them to gather grain and seeds to feed his group, most importantly at the expense of the ants, whom he terrorizes.
Evilness: Well... on an evil scale, terrorizing innocents is high on the list. Having slaves is also high. Enjoying having slaves is even higher. Hopper is not a nice dude in any way. He's cruel to his brother. He's cruel to the ants. He's cruel. Very evil.
Motive: His motive is a little weak, I'd say. He's basically evil just because he's bigger than the ants, and because he's lazy. He doesn't want to gather the grain himself (not that he would even if the grasshoppers were), so he's used his imposing strength and stature to enslave a whole colony. Not cool, but not some sort of higher evil purpose either.
Comic Relief: Hopper is NOT funny. Not at all. In fact, Annie (Who will hopefully be providing a Guest WWW column in 2 weeks) thinks he's too scary. I know for a fact his animatronic doppleganger at Disney World is absolutely terrifying to children. (which IS hilarious, but not the kind of comic relief I'm talking about.)
Ability: Also kinda low, to be honest. He's duped a couple of times by a rag-tag group of circus bugs. He's not brave. He's a bully, and that's pretty much it. An effective one, but just a bully.
Evil Acts: Again... Slavery is pretty evil. If you have to pick one especially bad thing, he does try to strangle Flik at the end of the film before he's snatched up by a bird.
SKULLS: 3 out of 5. He's really mean and scary, but lacks a lot in the Motive and Comedy departments..


Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Winner of the Hand-drawn Animated Female Villain Division
Short Synopsis: She's a creature known as a cecealia, or Sea Witch, who lives under the sea (har har) and basically acts as a "Devil" of sorts. She magically gives mer-people their desires in exchange for their souls.
Evil: Well, first off, she steals people's souls in sucker deals. Not cool. She's deceptive. She really, and I mean really hates King Triton (and by extension his offspring). She's got no qualms about killing, lying, cheating or doing whatever she needs to do in order to get her way.
Motive: Her motive is very similar to Malificent's (who came in last in the poll). She was once part of the kingdom, but was banished by King Triton (For unspecified reasons). Her entire purpose in life is to get revenge on King Triton and the Mer-world. Her biggest catch would be the soul of Ariel, Triton's daughter (and the title character).
Comic Relief: Ursula is truly an awesome character, and one of her strengths is the balance Disney found between her being pretty mean and evil and her being funny. She IS funny. Her song "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is full of puns and humor. Great stuff. Also her appearance was modeled after the famous Drag Queen, Divine. How could it not be funny?
Ability: She's a pretty adept witch. Over the course of the movie, she makes Ariel a human. She makes herself a human. She steals Ariels voice. She makes herself a giant. She creates a huge storm. Basically, she's got skillz.
Evil Act: Hard to pick just one, so I'm actually gonna go with her general enjoyment in setting the mer-people up to fail in order to get their souls.
SKULLS: Ursula gets a solid 4.5 out of 5. She's evil, funny, able, and has performed the deeds to back them up. The one downfall is that I think she's maybe her mark (Ariel) is a little too easy. A gullible teen, essentially.


Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmations)
Runner up Hand-drawn Animated Female Villain Division
Short Synopsis: A rich old woman who wants to turn dalmation puppies into a fur coat. That's...about it.
Evilness: Well... She wants to kill puppies for her own fashion-forwardness. That's pretty bad. Also not entirely different than your average dog-eating person in real life. It's only evil because we westerners have made dogs into something more than cows. I dunno.. obviously, I'd prefer for her to not kill puppies.
Motives: Fashion? Eh... I dunno. It's lame.
Comic Relief: Well, she's not particularly funny either. She has Horace and Jasper as her sidekicks, and they are pretty funny, but she's probably the most...absentee of all the villains in this poll. Not there much= not funny much.
Ability: Well... Um... She drives like a maniac, but she also wrecks them. She's fairly intelligent, I suppose, but more manipulative than anything.
Evil Acts: Again... she PLANS to kill some puppies for coat-making purposes. That's about it.
SKULLS: 1 out of 5. I honestly think Cruella wouldn't even be this beloved if not for the animation itself. She's mostly along for the ride.



Scar (The Lion King)
Winner Hand Drawn Animated Animal Villain Division
Short Synopsis: A character modeled after Claudius from Hamlet. He's the brother of the king, he plots to kill the king and succeeds. He takes over the kingdom.
Evil: Gotta say... Killing your benevolent brother who cares about you more than you deserve is pretty evil. Pinning it on your innocent nephew? Really evil. Making an unholy alliance with Hyenas? Just plain evil.
Motives: Weak, I'd say. He wants to be king. It wasn't good enough being the well fed brother of the king. That's pretty much it. Simple jealousy. Kinda boring.
Comic Relief: Some would say that Scar isn't funny, but his lines and Jeremy Irons' delivery are both so perfect. I think he's hilarious. I especially love his dry dealings with Simba and Zazu both.
Ability: Well, he's a great strategist (in the short term) but he's severely lacking in foresight, knowledge of the ecosystem (I mean...how in the hell did the Pridelands get so barren so fast? C'mon Scar!), and he's definitely not an adept fighter. Damn he's smart though.
Evil Act: The aforementioned murder/frame-up plan. Pretty much as evil as it gets.
SKULLS: 4 out of 5. Very evil. Very funny, but sort of lacking in the Motive department, I'd say.


Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
Winner of the Hand Drawn Animated Male Villain Division
Short Synopsis: A pirate captain, stranded in Neverland, who really hates him some non-growing up Peter Pan.
Evilness: Who hates kids? I mean... c'mon man! Actually... he's mostly just bored, and he just wants Peter to leave him the hell alone. Not that evil really... more crotchety. He does, on many occasions seriously try to kill a bunch of kids which is pretty evil, I'd say.
Motive: Again... boredom and the want to be left alone. Also, he's got himself this whole notion that as a pirate, he's obligated to act like a pirate. In this case, killing and pillaging.
Comic Relief: Here's where Hook takes it over them all. He's funny because he's got that dual quality of being both mean and a pretty big coward. He's hilariously terrified of Tic Tock Croc (not that you can blame him). He's a dandy. He's a fop. He's the archetype of several different comic antagonists
Ability: He's obviously got some pirating skills, as he's been the captain of a pirate ship (without mutiny) for what can only be many, many years. He is a manipulator, and he's educated, and he's not a bad swordsman...especially for having just the one hand.
Evil Acts: Probably his worst act was either trying to bomb Peter (and at the same time loop-holing Tinkerbelle in the process) or the many, many times he tries in earnest to kill Peter, the Lost Boys, Wendy, Smee...Everyone.
SKULLS: Well.. He gets a 4 out of 5. The Motive is weak, at best. The comedy is as high as it gets, though, and really I think he's got a lot of evil in him. It takes someone evil to choose piracy to begin with.

So... based on this, Ursula The Sea Witch comes out on top. I'm a little surprised. I expected Hook to coast to a victory. I was tempted to add criteria to make it end up that way, but that would be an empty victory. I can say that Hook won his poll by the largest margin, so I can have that little victory.

In any case, he may not be the best on paper, but to me he's second to none.

Until next time.

The Disney Villains Tournament

Hey Folks-

So, I made a bold statement in my "Wednesdays with Walt" column stating that Captain Hook is the greatest of Disney villains. I stand by that comment, and on October 1st, in the next "Wednesdays with Walt", I'll make my argument.

Still, I thought it'd be fun to see what you all thought, so I'm gonna do this tournament style, and see who comes out on top. I've divided the villains into different categories. The winners of each bracket will face off in a final four, and then the overall winner will be chosen.

Here we go:

Best Pixar Villain
	Randall, Monsters Inc.
	Hopper, A Bug's Life
	Syndrome, The Incredibles
	Skinner, Ratatouille
pollcode.com free polls

Best Hand-Drawn Villain, Male Division
	Jafar, Aladdin
	Captain Hook, Peter Pan
	Stromboli, Pinnochio
	Gaston, Beauty and the Beast
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Best Hand-Drawn Villain, Female Division
	Cruella, 101 Dalmations
	Maleficent, Sleeping Beauty
	Ursula, The Little Mermaid
	The Queen, Snow White
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Best Hand-Drawn Villain, Animal Division
	Scar, The Lion King
	Shere Khan, The Jungle Book
	Si and Am, Lady and the Tramp
	Prince John, Robin Hood
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Go to Town!

** Villains image shown above by Robert de Michiell

"God, I love little fishes. Don't you?"

The Little Mermaid changed everything.

When I say that, I don't mean like... “In the world”, but it did change everything. For Disney, a company on the brink of irrelevance. For me, a kid who...well... had it pretty good, so it's not like The Little Mermaid, or Disney “saved” me from anything, but it opened my eyes to an art form. That counts for something. A lot actually.

Disney, the animation company, was at an all time low in it's history. Of course, there'd been some low times before. The sagging success of most of the features post-Snow White up through the war. That was certainly bad, though those movies have all come to be considered classics. Many consider Pinocchio to be one of the greatest achievements in hand-drawn animation. Fantasia speaks for itself. Bambi. I could go on.

Even in the darkest times for Walt, his movies were spectacular. The same can not be said for the period we like to call “most of the 80s”. There were 5 animated features released by the company in the decade of the 80s and I dare you to name the first 4. They aren't BAD movies. In fact, The Fox and the Hound is pretty good. After that, though, we have 3 of the least loved animated features ever released by the Disney company. The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, and Oliver and Company.

There are people who love these movies, but none of them have the same timeless feel as it's predecessors, and really...that's what Disney banks on. They rely on the sale of DVDs and the re-releases, and the introducing of new generations to the magic of Disney. I never saw any of those movies in the theater. I never watched any of them on VHS. I was a Mary Poppins fan, sure. I was loved The Jungle Book and Peter Pan and 101 Dalmations. A whole young generation (mine) was deprived of it's own classic, and Disney was fading.

Who knew a film prominently featuring fish would turn things around?

The Little Mermaid was released on November 17, 1989 and pretty much blew everyone away. Disney'd finally returned to the formula that had made them great. Phenomenal music, humor, mind-blowing animation, and memorable characters. The movie made over 170 million dollars. More than the other 80's Disney flicks combined.

It was a return to a full musical, a tradition that had lasted for 40 years but hadn't really been pursued since the 70s.

It was the first adapted fairy tale since Sleeping BeautyIt won an Oscar for Best Original Score and had 2 songs nominated for Best Song.

The post-Little Mermaid success for Disney is well documented. The animation department went from employing 300 people in 1988 to almost 2500 by the year 2000. The years that followed provided Disney with the Academy Awards, and HUGE financial success of almost every movie they've released since then (sorry Treasure Planet and Atlantis). They've created the relationship with computer animation company Pixar. The last 20 years have been so successful that the era is known as “The Disney Renaissance”.

As for me... it's a little more mushy. The memories are more personal and the connections are more ethereal.

As I said, The Little Mermaid was the first classic for my generation. I watched that movie at sleep-overs, and at my grandparents. I sang the songs in Theater Camp (yep.. ). I acted out “Le Poissons” at my buddy Matt's house (.... yyyep.) Hell... I even made out with a girl (when I was 12) while it played in the background. (I'm...not proud). I remember reading the Audio-Book to my sister when she was barely 3 or 4. She loved it when I'd dance to “Under the Sea”. I wonder if she remembers that.

More than anything else, it made me anticipate every Disney movie since then. It made me excited, when I was 13, to be going to Disney World. I am certain that my first visit to Disney wouldn't have been as meaningful as it was, had The Little Mermaid not set me up to love the place.

Here are the 3 most important things to me about The Little Mermaid

1) My on-going joke about Prince Eric at Disney World. I've long argued that the role of Prince Eric in “Voyage of The Little Mermaid” is the greatest single role in live theater anywhere in the world. He barely says a word. He knows his show isn't going to be closing any time soon. His sole responsibility is to run out on stage, shout “Ariel!” and then kiss her. 8 times a day. Perfect gig.

2) “Kiss the Girl” is one of the 5 greatest Disney songs. There's not much to say about that. You have Sebastian being all sexy and being all “Wind. Wooords.” The soft steel drum. The effing hilarious Buddy Hackett as Scuttle. It's a classic. I want it to be the first dance at my wedding.

3) The return of the great Disney Villain. To me, Villains make the story. If there's not a good villain, there's no stakes. There's no danger. There's no conflict. I have always been mostly drawn to villains. Disney has had some great villains in it's time. Captain Hook is obviously the greatest (I'll elaborate on the next Wednesdays with Walt). After that there's a whole gaggle of other great ones... Scar, Jafar, Cruella, Hades... There are tons of them, and Ursula the Sea Witch brought it all back. She's scary. She's funny. She's got the GREAT song “Poor Unfortunate Souls”. She returned the Disney Villain to glory. I love her.

So... Watch it again. I guarantee it'll be as good you remember. That's why it's the movie that saved Disney. It's the first classic of my generation.